Review: SETA Smartphone Stand

If you are anything like me, when you are not carrying your smartphone in your pocket you often put your smartphone down on your desk, nightstand, or dresser. Unfortunately, when your phone is sitting on a flat surface, there is no easy way to quickly see why your phone is buzzing or ringing without reaching over, grabbing it, and holding it up so you can see the screen. This means you have to always stop what you are currently working on or doing to reach over and hold up your phone up to make sure you aren’t missing an important call, notification, or email.

The folks at 1.0 Innovations have come up with a rather, well, innovative approach to this common issue in their new SETA Smartphone Stand.

A Beautiful, Minimalistic Stand

The Seta Smartphone Stand is made of aircraft grade aluminum that comes in a variety of neat colors. On the stand are two “Nanosuction” grips on the bottom of the stand to hold it to your counter/desk/nightstand and on the top of the stand to hold your smartphone in place. These grips are specially designed to not feel sticky when you touch them while at the same time securely gripping the smartphone that you place against it and the surface that it is placed on.

The black “Nanosuction” gripper that holds your phone in place at the top of the stand.

The bottom of the stand also has an area cut out of it that is made to hold the charging cable of your smartphone. It is shaped to fit and hold in place the charging cables of all of the major smartphone brands and allows the cord to go behind the stand so that it can be plugged neatly into the nearest outlet.

The nice cable-holding cutout at the bottom of the stand is very convenient.

Performance

I had never been a person who felt a strong need for any sort of smartphone stand and had never purchased one prior to trying out the SETA stand. However, this little stand has won me over to some of the benefits of using a stand.

In practice, it was extremely nice to slap my phone onto this stand and have it sit upright for quick viewing whenever my phone rang or alerted me to something. This allowed me to quickly glance at the phone whenever an alert came in and to easily continue working with both hands while doing so. If the notification or alert was not urgent, I could quickly see that and continue doing whatever it is I was working on.

The stand made it easy for me to glance at my phone notifications while continuing to work.

I was a little leery at first to trust a stand that relied on a sticky grip to hold my phone in a nearly vertical position. I envisioned the phone constantly slipping off and maybe even cracking my screen. The “Nanosuction” grips, though, are for real. They grip very securely to the back of the phone to the point where it is very securely held in place. At the same time, the grips don’t grab the phone so hard that it is difficult to remove the phone either. It was always extremely easy to slap the phone on the stand and then pull it off without any trouble. I was even able to leave the phone on the stand for one whole day without it slipping even the slightest bit. These grips are perfectly tuned to grip securely and still allow for easy removal of your devices. I was very impressed.

The grips very securely held my phone upright without ever failing.

The stand also came with two extra “Nanosuction” grips. The purpose of one of the extra grips is that it can be stuck to the back of a smartphone case if you keep your smartphone in a case at all times. Not all smartphone cases stick very well to the SETA Stand, but sticking a “Nanosuction” grip to your smartphone case allows you to still use your phone with this stand if your phone is in a case.

The second extra “Nanosuction” grip is included for you to stick anywhere in your car or home where you would like your smartphone to be able to be “stuck”. This would allow you to hang your smartphone on a wall, the side of a desk, on a car’s dashboard, and many other places.

The “Nanosuction” grips even stick easily to windows. This opens up the possibility of sticking your phone or even your iPad onto an office window or car window. Putting one of these special grips onto the back of your phone opens up a lot of cool possibilities.

An iPhone stuck to a window using an extra included “Nanosuction” grip.

Because the SETA Smartphone Stand uses sticky grips to hold phones, this stand is really compatible with almost any smartphone out there and can be considered “future proof” as it will likely work with any future phones that you buy as well. This is a refreshing concept for anyone sick of always having to throw away and buy new accessories every time they make a phone upgrade.

Easily Cleanable

Though the “Nanosuction” grips are made to not feel very sticky when you touch them and to not grip many other things other than your devices, the grips do still attract a fair amount of hair and dust after a few days of use.

Thankfully, the Seta Stand grips can easily be cleaned with a damp paper towel or clear tape to remove whatever foreign substances are stuck to it. When I did this, the grips regained all of their grip once again and still performed as new. One has to wonder how often this can be repeated before the grips begin to lose a bit of their “grippyness”, but in my testing the stand still worked as new after a couple of cleanings.

Verdict

I have to admit I was a bit leery prior to this review of a smartphone stand that relied on sticky grippers to hold your phone in place. I have to say, however, that I came away impressed at how well this stand worked for my iPhone. I enjoyed the easy view-ability of my phone that this stand offered, the way it securely held my phone in place while also easily letting go when I grabbed the phone, and its solid, classy construction.

If you are looking for a versatile smartphone stand that works with your current smartphone and is almost guaranteed to work with your next phone as well, look no further than the SETA Smartphone Stand.

Availability

Right now the SETA Smartphone Stand has been launched on Kickstarter and has nearly quadrupled its original fundraising goal. At the time of this review, you can still reserve your own stand by pledging various dollar amounts as low as $19 to help support the project.

Upcoming Giveaway!

The Seta Smartphone Stand used in this review will be offered in a giveaway contest that begins on Saturday, June 15th. Make sure to come back to iSource.com to sign up for your chance to win!